Wednesday, February 15

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: Sunderland A.F.C.

(Sunderland supporter; "FTM" stands for

"fuck the Mags" in honor of their hatred

of all things Newcastle United)

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football dork methodology
meant to establish a listing of players who have been most active for English
Premier League teams in their past 100 non-friendly matches. Essentially, it is
calculated by minutes played, but weighted towards most recent games. The end
result is a listing of the 25 players in a team’s recent history who have had
the largest hand on their metaphysical sporting trajectory. The English Premier
League was chosen because it is the highest level of football played in an
English speaking country, and I speak English. Also, it is what comes on TV
here in the USA, where I fucking live. Should I not fail in maintaining my
unpaid deadline, a new 25-Man Metaphysical Roster will appear on the 1st and
15th of every month.]

Sunderland has perpetually been involved in
relegation dogfight for as long as I’ve followed EPL the past few years. They
seriously have been entirely on the verge of destruction the entire time, and
yet somehow continually just barely survive. They have been the fucking
cockroaches of top-flight English football, except maybe this season might
finally be their end. Of course it is too early to say, because these fuckers
might do it again. When I first started paying attention, they were managed by
Paolo Di Canio, so I’ve always vaguely associated them with Nazis. Oddly
though, the internet tells me their supporters sing “Red Flag” and are among
the most left-leaning in English football. Who the fuck knows? (It is
apparently some app that listed them as left-leaning, and I’m not sure I trust
apps, nor do I trust the internet, nor do I trust the political leanings of
shaved head English drunkards. Trust nothing. Ever.)

It is also interesting to note the managerial
chain of Sunderland recently. Sam Allardyce was heading things last season,
only to leave a barely not-relegated team to go coach the English National
team, which lasted about two months before he was run off by flaming pitchforks
for corruption allegations from the past. (At least it wasn’t child
molestation.) Now he’s at Crystal Palace, perhaps barely avoiding relegation
again. Maybe that’s his niche now. But David Moyes is in charge at Sunderland
now, and it’s hard to believe it was only a few years ago Moyes was hand-picked
as Alex Ferguson’s chosen successor at ManU, which of course ended without
success (meaning they weren’t contending for championships), although both of
the more higher profile people to follow Moyes have also failed with regards to
this endeaver at ManU. So now Moyes is attempting to keep Sunderland afloat,
even though he’s never really done that outstanding at any managerial
appointment thus far (outside of his first job at Preston North End in the
Football League). Currently, Sunderland is taking a training trip to “culturally
educate” themselves (according to Moyes) and try to build some team unity. They
are doing so in New York, because ya know America is hotbed of footballing
superiority. Kinda stupid to brand market a potentially dying brand.

Nonetheless, here are the 25 men who through their
minutes played in the past 100 Sunderland non-friendly matches, find themselves
on this metaphysical roster…

#1: PATRICK VAN AANHOLT – van Aanholt had been the
anchor on Sunderland’s survivalism defense for a while, but recently switched
relegation-ready clubs in this past transfer window, moving to Crystal Palace.
It is always somewhat sad to see long-time players from teams in that
relegation zone get moved between clubs, because there’s always this feeling
they’re dumping off dead weight.

#2: JERMAIN DEFOE – Defoe is an aging English
striker who seems to have been playing for a thousand years. He was good enough
(sarcasm) to even spend a season in MLS playing for Toronto FC.

#3: JOHN O’SHEA – Team captain for Sunderland, and
old Irish dirtdog of the defensive back field, O’Shea was shaped by a decade in
the elevated expectational zone of Manchester United, bouncing in and out of
first-team form, constantly harassed by media and fans, but learning a fluidity
on the field that even saw him playing as a striker at times. All this shaped
him into the seen-it-all shithead holding down Sunderland’s cohesiveness as
their pitch self-police.

#4: LAMINE KONE – Kone came to Sunderland January
of 2016 transfer window, and was expected to hold down defense (and is
considered metaphysical replacement for van Aanholt), except there were legal
issues with his arrival from FC Lorient. Then he wanted to leave in August, but
somehow decided to stay (meaning nobody else wanted him likely). Currently he is
catching shit from Sunderland supporters because after their 4-0 loss last
weekend, Kone tweeted how the result wasn’t that bad because other matches went
in their favor.

#5: BILLY JONES – Is there nothing more English
than median-appearance footballer born in total BBC3 sounding place of
Shrewsbury, Shropshire, playing back line defense for Sunderland? Yes, there is…
his name is the completely anonymizing Billy Jones. This guy has complete Anglo
cultural camouflage going on.

#6: VITO MANNONE – Starting GK for Sunderland, an
Italian dude.

#7: FABIO BORINI – Another Italian dude, but on
the opposite end of the footballing spectrum, attacking dude named Fabio, who –
like all great Italian players – looks domestically abusive.

#8: JACK RODWELL – The young Rodwell joined
Everton youth academy at age 7 (what the fuck?) and was their youngest ever
player in European competition when he subbed in at age 16 and like ¾ years. He
moved onto Manchester City, upward trajectory continuing, but something went wrong
though and now he is at Sunderland. The pall of doom now stains his entire
character to where he will never again excel, but due to vast expanse of
footballing networks, could probably half-heartedly be competent for lesser
teams in ever-diminishing levels for another decade.

#9: PAPY DJILOBODJI – Senegalese dudes named Papy
always good in my book. My ol’ lady travelled to Senegal years ago, and picked
up a little Wolof while there. We have always used the term “si si” for bad, so
our children actually say that shit when something is naughty. The global
ferment of metamodern existence is kinda fucked, no? I mean, it’s greatly
entertaining though, and I much prefer that to the fear-mongering white
nationalism that little dicks seem to take to in response. I’d rather live next
door to immigrants, to be honest.

#10: YANN M’VILA – My man Yann spent 2015-16
season with Sunderland on loan from Rubin Kazan in Russia, believing he was
gonna get a permanent move. Russian league is one of the worst on earth for
black dudes to play in, because the alt-right neo-nazi shit we’re seeing in
America has taken root there for 20 years. (Make no mistake about it – Bruce Arena/Landon
Donovan loving USMNT “American Outlaws” are prime demographic for Richard B
Spencer-izing.) Sunderland supporters loved my man Yann too, as he led the team’s
survival from relegation. But then the team never offered a permanent deal, so
Yann got mad, supporters got mad, and Yann is back in fucking Russia, living
hell.

#11: JORDAN PICKFORD – Pickford is their young
back-up GK who has spent stints starting between the posts, but probably still
not quite ready to hold down that role without question. But my man is ready
for any and all League and FA Cup starting XIs.

#12: LEE CATTERMOLE – A Beatrix Potter character
come to life through northeast England dark wizard’s ancient arts, making this
changeling a persistent presence with the Black Cats.

#13: SEBASTIAN LARSSON – Aging Swede who has been
Sunderland midfielding mainstay for more than half a decade.

#15: DIDIER IBRAHIM N’DONG – Gabonese dude who
came to Sunderland this past August transfer window for club-record transfer
fee of 13.6 mil euros. I don’t have a euro sign that I know of on my work
computer because this is America motherfucker. We not gonna make America great
with foreign ass wealth ampersands all over the place. Anyways, the African presence
on Sunderland is stronger than most English Premier League teams, thus I hope
they survive again because I enjoy the bleached hair highlighting techniques of
strong African footballers.

#16: JASON DENAYER – Denayer is one of those guys
that seems like he should be amazing and a star, but he’s buried in the
Manchester City depth charts, so the only way he really gets to shine is on
long-term loans like he is experiencing right now with Sunderland. This follows
loans to Galatasaray (in Turkey, last season) and Celtic (in Scotland, season
before last), both very amazing clubs. It’s gotta suck to go places like that,
get called back to Manchester City in the off-season, and know there’s no way
you’ll crack that line-up because they just signed five new dudes for a
bazillion euros.

#17: ADNAN JANUZAJ – Real life Januzaj takes a
back seat to fake world Januzaj, because I won a number of Polish Cups and
Ekstraklasa titles in the 2020s with Januzaj as part of my Balkan Pride theme
for Wisla Plock. We were crushing fuckers, and Januzaj was a big part of that.
I don’t know shit about him in real life football, but I have to assume he’s a
great young talent, being I know how great he’ll be in the future.

#18: WAHBI KHAZRI – Khazri is Tunisian at
international level (though born in France) and I tend to favor North African
footballers to be honest. Khazri started climbing into the starting XI more
often last season, and had a strong foot in them avoiding relegation at the end
of last year, but has been mostly in only as a sub this season, and not as
often.

#19: DEANDRE YEDLIN – Perhaps a sign of how
Sunderland is not the highest of English clubs is the fact an American used to feature
prominently for them. To Yedlin’s credit, he’s still in England, at
Championship level with shitty fucking Newcastle United, but at least he’s
honing his game there instead of shitty ass MLS. Of course that likely means
Bruce Arena’s corny Make USMNT Great Again ass probably gonna hold it against
Yedlin.

#20: JAN KIRCHHOFF – Kirchhoff been with
Sunderland just over a full year, mostly filling in gaps rather than full-time
starter. He had come up through German national youth team system, with caps at
U-18, U-19, and U-21 level, but never cracking top national team.

#21: YOUNES KABOUL – Paired up with Kone last
season to anchor defense under Allardyce, but now is gone to Watford.

#22: COSTEL PANTILIMON – Romanian GK who used to
start for Sunderland but has been gone to Watford for over a year now, where he
occupies space on the sidelines, unless it is the FA Cup. Looks like he did
come in for Watford during a game against Liverpool last November, which ended
as a 6-1 loss, so uh, probably back to the bench with his Romanian ass.

#23: JAVI MANQUILLO – Spanish defender who
technically been part of Atletico Madrid team since he went adult pro in 2011,
but has been on extended full-season loans at Liverpool (2014-15), Marseille
(2015-16), and now Sunderland (since August). Other than short injury spell,
tends to play full 90.

#24: SEBASTIAN COATES – Coates played for number
of seasons with Sunderland, but got shipped off to Sporting CP January 2016 so
Sam Allardyce could make their money right. Loan was extended, until he made
official “permanent” move two weeks ago. Permanent moves in football are never
permanent.

#25: ADAM JOHNSON – Alternative twitter journalist
extraordinaire. All the popular young progressive socialists follow and RT him regularly.

starting points

What It Do

Low art formed in low places by a real dude. Bread words on the bedazzling bedeviled internet machines. For flesh and blood contact, or exchanges of treasure or tribute): RAVEN MACK PO BOX 270 SCOTTSVILLE, VA 24590. For 1s and 0s robot contact (or exchanges of virus and vinegraic piss): ravenmack at gmail dot com. Paypal support can be thrown at that email address too if you got it like that.

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